Wednesday, September 11, 2013

We trained over the weekend at the Citadel PatCom, but as former
students who were present know, it was not a typical set of classes.
Holly and I had (and still have) many people to meet locally, tasks to
accomplish before our next loop of this beautiful country begins. As a
result, we got started late on Saturday for Fight to your Weapon,
and there were breaks forced by events. The breaks were good things -
you know, like Patriots riding around the mountain and buying property.
That is called progress. That is called building Tribe. That is
called morale and cohesion. That is called the premise of "The
Citadel". Even without walls we are building a community of Americans
who believe in Rightful Liberty, who are choosing to pioneer this modern
road back to Independence and Liberty, who are choosing their
neighbors, and with whom they will stand.

So you can see, I had ZERO problem with the breaks and the chaotic
nature of our Saturday class. We finished up as the last bits of
daylight surrendered to the night. Then we headed to the fire to talk.

Sunday was more of the same. Our GroundFighting 101 module is only a few hours, and it is far more physically demanding than Fight to your Weapon.
But we arrived atop the mountain later than we had planned, then Jim
took several people down the hill to fire his beautiful 1911 and ARs
(Oh, the horrors!! ;) sadly, and seriously, two people who had signed
up for the GroundFighting course had to leave before the class
began, because they had to get on the road and our "schedule" was shot
to heck (Hey, that's a funny! Shot...) Both Patriots refused
when I told them I'd hit the refund button at PayPal for their Sunday
fee - we parted with the understanding they will join us for a class at
some point in the future.

As all of my students know (though I am only making it public now), you only pay for my courses one time.

As part of the Obama administration’s repeated insistence – though
without offering proof – that the recent sarin gas attack near Damascus
was the work of the Assad regime, the administration has downplayed or
denied the possibility that al-Qaida-linked Syrian rebels could produce
deadly chemical weapons.

However, in a classified document just obtained by WND, the U.S.
military confirms that sarin was confiscated earlier this year from
members of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the most influential of the rebel
Islamists fighting in Syria.

The document says sarin from al-Qaida in Iraq made its way into
Turkey and that while some was seized, more could have been used in an
attack last March on civilians and Syrian military soldiers in Aleppo.

The document, classified Secret/Noforn – “Not for foreign
distribution” – came from the U.S. intelligence community’s National
Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC, and was made available to WND
Tuesday.

It revealed that AQI had produced a “bench-scale” form of sarin in Iraq and then transferred it to Turkey.

Michael Hayden has an interesting story to tell about the iPhone. He
and his wife were in an Apple store in Virginia, Hayden, the former head
of the United States National Security Agency (NSA), said at a
conference in Washington recently. A salesman approached and raved about
the iPhone, saying that there were already "400,000 apps" for the
device. Hayden, amused, turned to his wife and quietly asked: "This kid
doesn't know who I am, does he? Four-hundred-thousand apps means 400,000
possibilities for attacks."

Hayden was apparently exaggerating only slightly. According to internal
NSA documents from the Edward Snowden archive that SPIEGEL has been
granted access to, the US intelligence service doesn't just bug embassies and access data from undersea cables
to gain information. The NSA is also extremely interested in that new
form of communication which has experienced such breathtaking success in
recent years: smartphones.

MIDWAY CVA 41 * MEMORIAL SERVICE * Honors both the Republic of
South Vietnam and the USS Midway sailors who conducted Operation
Frequent Wind on April 30, 1975 * 17 nautical miles (31 km) from the
Vung Tau.

The Cessna O-1 Bird Dog that Major Buang landed on the USS Midway

At 07:00
on 29 April, Major General Smith advised Ambassador Martin that fixed
wing evacuations should cease and that Operation Frequent Wind, the
helicopter evacuation of US personnel and at-risk Vietnamese should
commence. Ambassador Martin refused to accept General Smith's
recommendation and instead insisted on visiting Tan Son Nhut to survey
the situation for himself.

At 10:00 Ambassador Martin confirmed General
Smith's assessment and at 10:48 he contacted Washington to recommend Option 4, the helicopter evacuation[38]. Finally at 10:51
the order was given by CINCPAC to commence Option 4, however due to
confusion in the chain of command General Carey did not receive the
execute order until 12:15[39].

Honoring the 35th Anniversary of April 30, 1975 Celebrating Freedom in America.

It
is the 35th anniversary of Operation Frequent Wind, the humanitarian
mission when USS Midway sailors rescued more than 3,000 Vietnamese
refugees fleeing the fall of Saigon.

Today, the Missouri State House of Representatives sent more than
just a message, they passed would could arguably be the strongest
state-level protection of the right to keep and bear arms in modern
times. The vote was 109-49

By overriding Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of House Bill 436 (HB436),
the 2nd Amendment Preservation Act, the Missouri state legislature gave a
resounding “No!” to all federal gun laws, rules, regulations and orders
– past, present and future.

In presenting the bill to the house, bill sponsor Douglas Funderburk
(R-St. Charles) noted, as both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did,
that it’s not just a good idea to resist such federal acts, but it’s
duty. He cited the Missouri Constitution when he said, “The principle
office of government is to secure the citizens’ rights.” He continued,
“This bill is saying we want to protect the protections and freedoms not
just in the Missouri Constitution but also in the US Constitution, and
that is one of the roles of this body.”

He concluded, “It’s time for the State of Missouri to do our duty to
protect the right to keep and bear arms, and to push back the tyranny of
an out-of-control and incompetent and federal government.”

After some opposition from Representative Jill Schupp in which she
attempted to scare people into believing that passing HB436 would
“protect pedophiles…and rapists,” another State Rep chimed in to
acknowledge that your right to keep and bear arms exists with or without
government, and that the legislature is doing their duty to protect
those rights. He said, “Whether you agree with who they are, where they
live or how they carry, it’s still their right. We’re not giving
people the right to carry, they already have the right to open carry.”

Shocking video evidence shows how Tallahassee police officers used
an unprovoked act of violence against a woman they were arresting for
driving under the influence. In front of their own dashboard camera,
without any legitimate provocation, two officers drilled a woman
face-first into the road, then knelt on her head, causing startling
physical trauma.

In the early hours of August 10, Tallahassee police arrived at the
scene of an alcohol-related accident. The suspect, 44-year-old
Christina West, was put through field-sobriety testing and determined to
be intoxicated.

During the arrest, the inebriated woman flailed her arm as the officer attempted to handcuff her.
“DON’T YOU F***ING TOUCH ME,” Officer Chris Ormerod roared.

The officers are then seen forcefully slamming the 5′-6″, 130 pound
woman face-first to the hard ground, followed by a giving her a
gratuitous knee to the back of her head, exacerbating her facial trauma.

She can be heard screaming in pain as she is being pressed into the
road by two male assailants.

Officer Ormerod continued to press her
face into the ground with his arm.

West was arrested on a charge of DUI and several counts of battery on a law-enforcement officer, according to Tallahassee.com.

Florida State Attorney Willie Meggs said he was shocked by brutality
of the officers, and will not prosecute West for battery on a police
officer.

“I am extremely upset,” he said in an interview with the Tallahassee
Democrat. “It is very disturbing. This is a very disturbing situation to
me, and I’m dealing with it.”

“The video was taken from the police car and shows the road side
sobriety test as well as the arrest of the subject,” City Commissioner
Scott Maddox wrote to city officials.
“It also shows DISTURBING use of force against a completely non
aggressive arrestee. It is my belief that the city of Tallahassee will
soon face a liability lawsuit based on the content of the video.”

The State Department's own hypocrisy was revealed when Issa reminded Kerry that during the ARB investigation, the cited reason for refusal was a non-issue and the claim to "'insulate'" witnesses from "'any perception of political influence or political accountability in fulfilling their responsibilities' actually creates the impression that the Department is exerting its own political influence to prevent survivors from speaking to Congress."

In conclusion, Issa requested the State Department make available those witnesses who survived the Benghazi attacks to the Committee by Sept. 24, 2013, or he would consider the use of "compulsory process."

********************************

While Congress debates and eventually votes on the possible military action against Syria, it must also continue to deal with the unsolved and unresolved terrorist attack on the American outpost in Benghazi, Libya. It has been previously reported that as many as 21 Americans were working in the CIA annex near the outpost, and Congress has been pushing to interview those survivors. Previous reports also indicated that the CIA was routinely polygraphing its operatives in an effort to keep secret any information surrounding the incidents on Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry, informed Congress he "will not honor the request to make Benghazi survivors available for questioning," according to CBS news reporter Sheryl Attkisson and reported by The Blaze.

Fairfax City police say that a resident may have shot one of the two
burglars who entered a townhouse with weapons and assaulted some of the
residents.

Police say two men forced their way into a townhouse in the 3900
block of Bradwater Street in the Comstock community at 10:45 p.m. on
Tuesday. According to the residents, the men implied the had weapons,
took some items and physically assaulted some of the residents. The
residents suffered minor injuries, say police.

According to police, the burglars fled when one resident fired a handgun. Police think one burglar may have been shot.

Police described both burglars as black and in their twenties. One
suspect was about 6 feet tall while the other was 5'9" tall. They both
had an average build and were wearing gray hooded sweatshirts and blue
jeans, say police.

A carjacking suspect was shot and killed in north Houston Tuesday night,
and authorities say the alleged victim pulled the trigger.

It happened around 9:30pm at a McDonald's drive-thru off West Little York near Interstate 45 North.
Police say two men got out of a green Honda and pulled a gun on a man in the parking lot.

According to police, the man who was robbed was trying to rent a movie
from the Red Box when he was approached by the suspects, who took his
keys and phone. But the suspects apparently didn't realize the victim
had a license to carry a gun.

The suspects got into his car and
started backing out. That's when police say the car's owner pulled his
gun and started shooting at the carjackers.

"He shot the
passenger possibly two to three times. He was able to get out the
passenger side and run away," said Sgt. Robert Torres with the Houston
Police Department. "The driver was also shot. He tried to climb out
the passenger side door, but he did not survive his injuries."

A pharmacy
worker in North Little Rock, Ark., pulls out a .45 Glock pistol when the
would-be robber jumps the counter and confronts him with an enormous
knife.

Zoom! The suspect takes off after seeing the Glock pistol pointed at him.

A thug who hit up an Arkansas pharmacy with a machete got his just desserts when a brave worker threatened him back with a gun.
The terrified crook went running for his life Friday after the clerk
whipped out the firearm during the botched robbery at the Medicine
Shoppe in North Little Rock.

An attacker pummeled a bus passenger so hard he smashed the bones in
his face after calling the victim a “cracker” in Manhattan – marking the
second time in two days that people appeared to be randomly targeted in
racial tirades against white people, authorities said.

In the latest incident, the suspect passed a 31-year-old rider on the
M60 bus riding through Harlem, on West 127th Street, between Amsterdam
Avenue and Morningside Drive, around 2:45 p.m., Friday, when he shouted
the racial slur and punched the victim in the face, breaking his nose
and eye socket, cops said.

The victim was treated for facial fractures at New York Presbyterian Hospital and released, police said.

Russia is not keen at this stage for a binding U.N.
Security Council resolution that would provide a framework to control
Syria’s chemical weapons’ stocks, France’s foreign minister said after
talks with his Russian counterpart on Tuesday.

“As I understood, the Russians at this stage were not necessarily
enthusiastic, and I’m using euphemism, to put all that into the
framework of a U.N. binding resolution,” Laurent Fabius told French
lawmakers after a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov.

Obama is being played. The Russian deal forced him to change course
and re-write tonight’s speech at the last minute. Now he has to re-write
it again, or pretend that the Russians didn’t just drop a flaming bag
of something on the White House doorstep. It will be grimly amusing to
see what Obama tells the American people about all this now. The words
“fiasco” and “clusterf*ck” have been said by others today. He won’t use
either word, but that doesn’t mean both don’t apply.

Jon Feere of The Center for Immigration Studies also lists the companies on his blog, "Cheesecake Factory, Hallmark, Disney, and Others Now Pushing Amnesty." Feere writes: The
number of working-age (16 to 65) native-born Americans who are not
working -- unemployed or out of the labor market -- stood at 57.5
million in the second quarter of 2013. The unemployed population is
spread throughout the labor market and includes 25 million with no more
than a high school education, 16 million with some education beyond high
school, and nine million with at least a bachelor's degree.

In "Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor," Byron York of The Examiner reports the number of workers many of the companies have recently laid off. He writes In
all, it's fair to say a large number of the corporate signers of the
letter demanding more labor from abroad have actually laid off workers
at home in recent years. Together, their actions have a significant
effect on the economy. According to a recent Reuters report, U.S.
employers announced 50,462 layoffs in August, up 34 percent from the
previous month and up 57 percent from August 2012.

The
Senate has already caved to corporate demands for an alternative to
hiring U.S. workers. Now these companies want the House to finish the
job.

Twelve years ago today, Benjamin Clark saved hundreds of
lives in the South Tower. But he wasn’t a firefighter or a cop. Michael
Daly on what we can learn from the courageous chef.

The son was not a firefighter or a police officer.

He was a chef.

But
a morning that began with him preparing meals for the people at the
Fiduciary Trust Company suddenly led to him becoming as brave as any
first responder. A Fiduciary official would later credit Clark with
saving hundreds of lives as he made sure that everyone in his department
along with everybody else in the company’s 96th floor offices in the
South Tower was safely exiting the building.

He then paused on the 78th floor to assist a woman in a wheelchair.

“He could have gotten out,” his mother says. “Everybody else did.”

The mother would ascribe some of his courage to him having been a Marine for eight years.

“Assad
is responsible for the gas attack.” Translation; he did not
order it, directly (no one with half a brain, apart from the
Return of the Living Dead neo-cons, believes the current White
House “evidence” sticks). But he’s still
“responsible”. And even if Al-Nusra Front did it – with
‘kitchen sarin’ imported from Iraq, as I proposed here, Assad is still “responsible”;
after all he must protect Syrian citizens.

***********************************

The frantic spin of the millisecond is that the White House is taking
a ‘hard look’ at the Russian proposal for Bashar Assad to place Syria’s
chemical weapons arsenal under UN control, thus at least postponing
another US war in the Middle East.

Oh, the joys of the geopolitical chessboard; Russia throwing a
lifeline to save US President Barack Obama from his self-spun
‘red line’.
True diplomats are supposed to prevent wars – not pose as
warmongers. American exceptionalism is of course exempted. So
just as Secretary of State John Kerry had the pedal on the metal
selling yet another war in a London presser, his beat up Chevy
was overtaken by a diplomatic Maserati: Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov.

After the North Carolina coast fell into Union hands, Lenoir County became the Eastern
front for the Confederacy in North Carolina.

Two battles were fought on Lenoir County soil, the Battle of Kinston (Dec. 13-14, 1862)
and the Battle of Wyse Fork (March 7-10, 1865). There are driving tours whereby the
battlefields can be visited today to see where war was fought and live in the experience. Tom
Dooley (Dula) of the song ‘Hang down your Head Tom Dooley’, was in one of the Confederate
units that fought at Wyse Fork as was a future NC Supreme Court Chief Justice. Braxton
Bragg, Robert F. Hoke and D.H. Hill were Confederate Generals at Wyse Fork.

The Confederate ironclad, the CSS Neuse, was built in Seven Springs and outfitted and
moored at the docks on the Neuse River at Kinston. The remains of the boat can be seen in the
recently opened Civil War Interpretive Center downtown along with interpretation of the naval
history of the ironclad.

A raid down the Neuse River from Kinston to New Bern resulted in the sinking of the
USS Underwriter and one of its participants later went to Charleston and was on the H.L.
Hunley when it sank in Charleston harbor after a successful attack on a Union ship.

A full size replica, CSS Neuse II, is located one block away adjacent to where the
original was outfitted and docked. Go aboard her and see the quarters where men lived and
worked.

Espionage became a way of life for some slaves as they aided the Union Army at New
Bern with information on Confederate movements.

The hangings in Kinston of 22 alleged deserters, under the directive of General George
Pickett stirred controversy causing a congressional investigation after the war.

An 1860’s era church is located on the site of Harriet’s chapel which was in the center of
Confederate defensive line on Dec, 14 and interpretive signs lead one from the church to some
of the remaining earthworks from the battle and the position of Starr’s battery during the battle.

The Blue & Gray Visitor Center is located at the intersection of Hwy 7 and US 258.

Many artifacts found in local battlefields are on display and a video of the Battle of Kinston can
be viewed in the auditorium. Battlefield driving tour brochures and other information is
available. A series of NC Civil War trails interpretive signs are in various places where events
took place.

In 1898, 34 years after Sherman’s army burned
Atlanta to the ground, a Union veteran visited the city. The veteran
addressed the Georgia legislature, praising the valor of the Confederate
dead and offering federal aid in the care of their graves.
Georgia rose up to welcome him and with Georgia the whole South. It was
a magnificent gesture by President William McKinley, who had been a
teenager at Sharpsburg. The scene has been recreated by biographer
Margaret Leech in her book, In the Days of McKinley:

"He sprang
to his feet when the band played 'Dixie' and waved his hat above his
head. He reviewed the marching ranks of gray-clad troops....His voice
was fervent as he said that the old disagreements had faded into history
and the nation would remain indivisible forever. Gen. Joe Wheeler often
stood beside the president, swelling the ovation by his immense
popularity."

Statement from a regular reader on the slate of civilian disarmament legislation just passed by the California’s legislators:

As a native Californian I hold my head in shame. I feel betrayed by
those in office and disgusted at their complete lack of support for our
liberties and rights. As a clear headed thinker I can easily show them
report after report to show that this type of legislation is expensive,
and costly. The end result will not make Californians any safer. Yet
they pass these bills anyways, because it feels good. They are attacking
the good law abiding people of California and no one seems to care. We
spend countless hours putting together rallies and informing the public
the best way we can and no one cares. We hear just move out of state.
Well guess what if it sticks here you will see more Colorado type
mishaps on the horizon. I for one am not giving up . . .

Russia’s Moskva missile cruiser, dubbed a “carrier-killer” by NATO,
has passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and is now heading toward
the eastern Mediterranean to assume command of the Russian naval force
there.

The Russian Navy said in a statement that the Moskva cruiser
passed through the Straits of Gibraltar on September 10.

Applications for U.S. home loans plunged as mortgage rates matched their
high of the year, with refinancing activity falling to its lowest in
more than four years, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of
mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home
purchase demand, sank 13.5 percent in the week ended Sept. 6, after
rising 1.3 percent the prior week.

That puts the index at its lowest since November 2008 and the depths of the financial crisis.

It was originally billed as “The Million Muslim March,” though
organizers later revised it to the “Million American March Against
Fear.”

But at noon today in the nation’s capital, there weren’t a million Muslims or Americans to be found anywhere – not even close.

In fact, a WND-TV news crew on the scene, preparing to provide live
coverage of the event in a webcast, has been unable to locate any of the
marchers who were supposed to go from the National Mall to the Supreme
Court and the White House.

However, the counter-protest by bikers was in evidence everywhere.
Driving in from Canada and all over the United States, the bikers, who
were denied a permit for their demonstration, were flooding the capital,
with some estimates in the hundreds of thousands.

In a powerful message to lawmakers considering passing gun-control
measures advocated by President Obama, voters in Colorado have recalled a
pair of Democratic senators who helped push through a series of gun
measures Obama had hoped to use as model legislation.
State Sen. John Morse gave his concession speech after he was
trailing by four percentage points with 83 percent of the precincts
reporting in.

Morse, along with Sen. Angela Giron, were both targeted for recall
following a series of party-line votes over a series of gun-control
bills that were among the strictest in the nation.

Hey Rand, so just kill him even though there is an "if?" There is no "if" since the Rebels are clearly responsible. You are on your way to becoming a neocon, when we all held such high hope for you. Your dad must be ashamed.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky, said President Barack Obama "didn't quite convince
me" on the need to launch a military strike on Syria in his Tuesday
night speech.

But, Paul said, Obama did make a compelling case that Syrian President
Bashar Assad is guilty of killing almost 1,500 civilians with poison gas
last month.

"If Assad is responsible he deserves death for this," Paul told Fox News
Channel after the Tuesday night speech. "But the president's plan is to
leave Assad alone," Paul said on a later CNN appearance.

Moreover, he said, the president is asking Americans to be on the same side as al-Qaida.

Jim Miller took the above photograph one evening this weekend from the III Arms / Citadel Beachhead.

Please forgive any incoherent writing in this post, I am dead-on-my-feet
exhausted, from one of the best weekends of my entire life. I'll post
more AARs and pictures from the weekend, but I wanted to give you all a
thumbnail sketch this evening.

First of all: We were blessed to have a group of Patriots who are, to
every man and woman, people any Patriot would treasure as a neighbor.
These are solid, smart, thinking, kind Americans, all with
mettle. I do not have the writing skills to convey just how "tight"
this group was from the first arrival to the last departure. We all
"clicked". Some of us knew one another from previous meetings beyond
the digital world, some of us "knew" one another from our online
community, and a few folks knew none of us, they read about our event in
local media and decided to drop in to say "Hi". Holly and I had a
feeling of family through the entire weekend - and good family, not the in-laws you dread seeing at Thanksgiving and Christmas. ;)

You may have seen it on The Colbert Report. A proposed walled
city of “patriots,” known as The Citadel, received the particular dose
of sarcastic humor the show reserves for militiamen and gun nuts.
Colbert’s reading of the requirement that all patriot residents must own
one AR-15 and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and periodically prove their
weapons’ proficiency, drew the most laughs from the audience.

Six months
later, this past June, when several of the Citadel’s principals
appeared on Glenn Beck’s television show, the tone was just the
opposite. A measured, serious discussion occurred, and the pros and cons
debated of patriots’ settling in mountainous Benewah County, Idaho, and
building a city where Thomas Jefferson’s “rightful liberty” would rule,
and employment be provided in a weapons-manufacturing facility.

Remembrance

To die for one’s country is not only an act of bravery, it is THE act of bravery. For soldiers, it is just an extension of their military career, a part of their duty. As leaders have asked their soldiers to sacrifice themselves for the good of the society, it is only right for leaders to go through the same motion. They should practice what they have preached.

As war is seen as a noble act, tu sat serves as redemption in case of defeat. It is also a way to tell the enemy: “You might have won the battle/war but you don’t deserve to win because you don’t have the chinh nghia (just cause).” And it is not only just cause: it is the moral belief that the cause they are fighting for deserves their total sacrifice. Continues below

Follow by Email

Counter

Core Creek Militia

==============================My sixth great grandfather, his wife, and five of his six children were killed in battle with the Tuscarora Indians at Core Creek, NC.

The Seven Blackbirds

==============================My third great grandfather was an Ensign in the Revolutionary War, and saved his unit's flag after being wounded at the Battle of Brandywine. He was also at Kingston (Kinston), Wilmington, Charleston, Two Sisters and Augusta. He was at the defeat at Brier Creek and also Bee Creek.

Requiem Aeternam -
Eternal Rest Grant unto Them
==============================
My second great grandfather was killed in action on May 3, 1863 at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
=============================
My great grandfather and great uncle knew all the men in the "Civil War Requiem" video as they were part of the 53rd NC which was the sole unit defending Fort Mahone. (Fort Mahone was named "Fort Damnation" by the Yankees) *Handpicked men of the 53rd (My great grandfather was one of these) made the final, night assault at Petersburg in an attempt to break Grant's line. This was against Fort Stedman which was a few miles to the slight northeast. They initially succeeded, but reinforcements drove them back. This video is made from photographs which were taken the day after the 53rd evacuated the lines the night before to begin the retreat to Appomattox. I have many more pictures taken by the same photographer, one of these shows a 14 year old boy and the other is the famous picture of the blond, handsome soldier with his musket.
===========================
*General Gordon promised the men a gold medal and 30 days leave if they accomplished their task and many years after the War my great grandfather wrote General Gordon, who was then governor of Georgia about this incident. They exchanged several letters which I have framed. See first link below.
===========================
*The Attack On Fort Stedman
============================
"His Colored Friends"
============================
Lee's Surrender
=============================
My Black NC Kinfolks
============================
Punished For Being Caught!

Great Grandfather Koonce

He was a drummer boy in the WBTS, survived the War only to die a few years later. He was caught in an ice storm on his way home, but instead of seeking shelter, continued on his horse until the end. His clothes had to be cut off and he died a few days later.